


people who break other people.

by novakid



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alcohol, Character Study, Grief/Mourning, Illustrated, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 11:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13657980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novakid/pseuds/novakid
Summary: Death is not a friend, But I hope in the endHe takes me in his arms and lets me hold his faceHe holds me in his arms and whispers something funnyHe lifts me in his arms and tells me to embraceHis attack, Then the scene turns to black.





	people who break other people.

Daniel wipes away condensation off of his glass with his thumb methodically, by each ornamental notch and bump. The bar's band is loud. Louder than anything is the cello. He wraps both his hands around the mug he's been nursing and takes another drink. 

_"You know if you hold it like that, it's going to lose its chill."_

Or maybe it's a bass. He isn't sure; all he knows is that it looks like a violin just as tall as he is. And that it's the loudest fucking sound in the bar. Loud enough for him to miss the soft chatter of the other patrons. He thinks that the bar tender tried to talk to him earlier, to see if he was okay. 

_"Dreadful etiquette, Jacobi, just ignoring a nice man like that. Didn't your mother ever teach you how to be a gentleman?"_

He's here for a celebration. Daniel only ever visits bars for celebrations. 

_"It's just as sad as it sounds." He said to his commander, one day, a long time ago._

_"You don't go to holiday parties, and you go out to drink alone for celebrations." He said in that amused voice of his. Daniel always found it endearing._

(Up until it wasn't.)

_"I'm not much of a people's person." He said after they share a laugh, and a drink. Maybe that was something that Daniel and Alana always shared, maybe that's how they were able to connect. They had a different way of handling people. So did Warren._

_"Well. Hopefully I can persuade you to change your outlook on that. Or at least get you to stop drinking alone." Ever smug. He always liked that smugness._

(Until he didn't.)

_They refilled their drinks and made a toast. "To us."_

Daniel hates alcohol. He's always hated alcohol. The smell of it reminds him of his father, the bastard, the absolute snob. The man always went on about the age, the smell, the make and the model. Daniel never got that, in the ways he never got cars, hiking, hunting. In the ways he couldn't be dad's ideal, G.I. Joe son.

He hates being in bars, too. So something about drinking in bars on days that made his stomach sick to its very core... it's funny. It's hilarious, even. He never understood it before, why people would do something like this to themselves. For awhile he figured it was to numb the pain. To forget about their problems? That's the reason Daniel thought when he first started doing it. But no, that's not it. He knows that now. If he really wanted to make all of his problems blow away, he'd do something productive. Get his mind off of it. Focus on work. Make something. Stimulate his mind. 

He's doing this because he hates himself. It's a gift from himself, to himself. _I'm punishing you,_ he thinks as he downs the last of his drink. He hates the taste. He doesn't know why people like it so much. 

_"It's an acquired taste."_

"If it's a taste you have to acquire after not liking it for the first couple hundred times," Daniel mutters to himself, "Is it really good?"

No answer. Obviously not, because Warren isn't there. But the Warren in his head wouldn't even dignify Daniel with a response. Maybe tsk at him just to tease him. Or because he is an ignorant idiot, stupid idiot moronic asshole-

Daniel gets up from the bar stool, pays for his drink, and walks home. 

* * *

Warren Kepler was not a good person. 

Tactical. Planning. Conniving. His gaze fell upon his prey and in an instant, he would know all the ways on how to kill, skin, and stuff that particular person. Stubborn and strict. By-the-book in the most off-the-book way. Cold. He was always sadistic and cold. Daniel liked to think he's felt his warmth before. Nowadays, he's not so sure. 

The first time Daniel committed murder (on purpose) was under Kepler's orders. At that point, he didn't fully understand what his job entailed. He knew two things. One, they needed a man who was good at breaking things. Two, there was absolutely no one else, no other company that would hire him. He needed Goddard Futuristics.

_"What kind of demolition job is this, exactly?" He asked._

_"Spring cleaning." Kepler answered. Expression neutral, with just the ends of his lips curled up. "Think of it as... drowning out the rats."_

There were twelve people in that building. Ten scientists, one guard, and one overseer. All of them reduced to a pile of rubble. Just like the rest of the building. 

_"You didn't tell me they were just scientists! You didn't tell me they were just innocent people!"_

_"You didn't ask."_

_"Would you have told me if I did?!"_

_"Would it have mattered?"_

That night, Daniel forced himself to cry until he passed out. 

The next morning, he felt just fine. And his 'demolition jobs' became much easier.

Warren Kepler was not a good person. 

Daniel Jacobi was not a good person, either. He'd even argue that he still isn't a good person. But the good people in his life, people like Minkowski, Eiffel, Lovelace, and even Hera speak to him as if he was always on their side. _It's because they're better than you,_ he thinks to himself. Once upon a time, Daniel was okay with being a monster. It was okay, because he was in similar company.  _His_ company.

_"May I, Jacobi?" All that smugness and ego, dripping over his lips. Filling Daniel's lungs. Suffocating him._

_His breath hitched. His hands shook. His voice wavered. "If you'll have me."_

_And he did._

Company. Togetherness. Like-mindedness. Being a horrible person with horrible people.

_"For a cause. A common drive." Kepler said, scotch in his hand. "For the big picture."_

(What a load of tripe.)

Warren Kepler was not a good person. 

Throughout the course of his first year working under Kepler's command, Daniel was almost positive that his commander absolutely hated him and wanted him to die. Sometimes Daniel forgets this. Whenever he does, he pulls out a piece of paper and writes the same list he always writes when he's feeling particularly nostalgic. 

_Remember time he tricked you into murdering twelve innocent people. Remember all the sadistic trials he would do to test your endurance and capabilities. Remember when he cut your tether on your first mission off earth. Remember when he locked you in a nearly empty warehouse to starve for a week. Remember when he nearly beat you to a bloody pulp in an impromptu sparring session. Remember all the times he wasted your time playing with your emotions. Remember when he'd use Maxwell to guilt you into doing a job you weren't ready for. Remember when he fucking took you to space and didn't tell anything about the "big picture" and the information you needed to handle it. Remember how carelessly he gambled with your life- gambled with Maxwell's life and lost it. Remember how he left you scared and confused and didn't even care. He didn't care, he never cared, he's always hated you and he never cared you stupid idiot dumb asshole-_

He usually stops around there. Most of the time.

And then, he burns it. Daniel wishes it was therapeutic, but it's more cathartic than anything. In the ways that make his very soul shake. He doesn't want to burn it. He wants to blow it up. Vaporize it, annihilate it with napalm, dynamite, with a fucking nuclear blast. An explosion so big it wipes away him and every trace of his very existence.

All the things Kepler did, all the things he said. All the things he didn't do, didn't say. They're all scars. Claw marks deep within the crevices of Daniel's fucking brain, and he envies Eiffel sometimes, wishing that somehow _he_ was the one who lost all his memories. Because out of everything? What hurts the most is all the things Kepler made Daniel feel. All the emotions he can't bring himself to write down and tear up.

He feels empty and hollow and _angry_ , so _fucking angry_. He feels scared and lost. Betrayed. What's his cause now? His purpose? Loss, grief. He doesn't miss Kepler, but the words left unsaid haunts him in ways that the memory of his alien doppelganger screaming for his life can't compare. He feels so much and so many different emotions that it makes Daniel want to throw up. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he just cries.

* * *

His room is small and dark, and he doesn't bother turning on the lights when he's home. Daniel just collapses on his bed and groans. Trying to enjoy the hot heavy feeling of booze in his stomach. He tries not to think so hard, or move to much. He can feel the sloshing in his stomach. "I should drink some water." He says softly before the voice in his head can say it for him. 

He sighs and gets back up to do just that. Shuffling to the kitchen and filling up a glass of tap water. On the way back, he rummages through the drawers of his dresser, finding a bottle of Advil he knows he'll need for the coming morning. He tosses the bottle on his desk. Pauses and leans over it to push away the junk mail and scrap papers he leaves there, before his eyes graze upward to his cork board on the wall. The kitten calendar Minkowski bought him for Christmas hangs there. Daniel takes a red marker and crosses off today's date; the twenty fourth.

_"You're a stickler for keeping dates, huh? How romantic."_

Daniel's eyes shift. A folded picture of Maxwell is pinned beside a group of thumbtacks shaped like Pac-man (courtesy of Eiffel). He reaches up and takes the picture off of the board and his office chair squeaks with his weight as he sits down. Daniel unfolds the picture to reveal his own smiling face on the left, and Kepler's on the right folded behind Maxwell. 

It was taken on the day the three of them found out they were assigned to the Urania altogether, for the first time. Far off travel. Not the furthest humanity has ever gone (not as far as the Hephaestus), but further than any of them could have ever expected to go in their lifetime. Maxwell, smiling wide with two peace signs. Cheesy. Kepler, looking the way he always did; professional and calm with a hint of amusement. And Jacobi, caught off guard but laughing. Happy. 

Except that, excluding Maxwell, their faces are scribbled out with pen. 

He immediately regretted ruining this picture when he first did. He still does.

Regret, shame, guilt, grief. He feels sick with it. 

Daniel puts down the picture and falls back on his mattress. Curling up on it. Alone and drunk, again.

And he falls asleep.

* * *

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> artwork is by me, which you can find [here on tumblr.](http://otagen.tumblr.com/post/170805264370/the-picture-si-5-took-when-they-first-found-out)  
> [this is the song where the lyrics in the summary are from.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7JkxuCVLjE) not a very jacobi song, but that stanza sort of fits, i think.


End file.
